Calculate

How to spell calculate

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce calculate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does calculate mean?

1. verbTo work out an amount, total, or result using arithmetic or reasoning.

Calculate in a sentence

• The accountant had to calculate the annual tax owed.

• Engineers calculate the load a bridge can safely carry.

Where does calculate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin calculare, meaning 'to reckon or compute', which was built on the noun calculus, literally 'a small pebble or stone'. The link is wonderfully concrete: Roman accountants reckoned sums by moving little pebbles on a counting board or abacus, so to 'pebble' something was to work out its total. The verb passed into English in the late 1500s, keeping the sense of working out figures and answers. The very same calculus root still survives in two surprising places: the branch of mathematics called calculus, and the 'calculus' a dentist scrapes off teeth, which was once thought of as a little stone. Remembering the buried pebble (calcul-) helps fix the spelling, since the awkward unstressed middle syllable is exactly where writers stumble.

How the word is built

• calcul- (from Latin calculus: a small pebble used for counting)
• -ate (verb suffix)